In the evaluation of an accelerator pedal of a motor vehicle, the detection of an idle state is particularly important. This state must always be reliably detected so that the engine torque is withdrawn when the driver takes the foot off of the accelerator pedal. So as always to ensure that this idle state is detected, a threshold value is provided for the sensor signal of the accelerator pedal sensor below which the accelerator pedal signal is understood as a request of an idle state. Due to manufacturing tolerances and/or tolerances in the installation of the accelerator pedal into the motor vehicle, this idle threshold has to be chosen in such a way that when all tolerances are taken into account, sufficiently good idle detection is always possible. As a result, however, there is initially a certain free travel when operating the accelerator pedal, in which, in spite of the operation of the accelerator pedal on the part of the driver, no increase of the engine torque is undertaken since in spite of the operation on the part of the driver the sensor signal still lies below the signal threshold provided for idling. In particular when the motor vehicle starts from rest this can cause the engine to stall since the driver has not operated the pedal to a sufficient degree.